MIRACLES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE: AN

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS.

MARC VAN OOSTENDORP

LEIDEN UNIVERSITY

Hi, I'm Marc van Oostendorp. This is Leiden University. Welcome to this course on the miracles of

human language. This is our studio where we prepared a course full of

surprises, full of miracles of human language.

THE COURSE. This course is all about diversity, and it's also about

similarity. That's because there are about 6,000 languages in the

world. They're diverse. They're all different, but they are also similar

in some way. How is that possible? That's one thing, an important

thing that we're going to explore in this course. We're going to

explore this in five modules.

MODULE 1: INTRODUCTION. In the first module, we talk about

questions like what makes language so typically human, or

differentiates it from, from animal languages, for instance. And we're going to see how linguists go

about their work. There are different kinds of linguists, and we're going to meet them.

MODULE 2: SOUNDS. In the second module, we talk about sounds of language. How do we produce

sounds? How do we distinguish sounds? How do we organize sounds in our minds?

MODULE 3: WORDS AND SENTENCES. In the third module, we talk about words and sentences. How

are languages different in the way in which they create words? How are they different in the way in

which they organize words into sentences?

MODULE 4: MEANING. In the fourth module we talk about meaning. How do we give meaning to words

and sentences in human languages? And how do languages differ in that?

MODULE 5: LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT. In the fifth module, we talk about language in its social

context. We talk about how language is actually used in, let's say, everyday life.

Since this course is all about diversity, there's also diversity within every module. It's not just me

explaining things to you. We also have discussions with students, and interviews with experts, with

linguists from the Netherlands and other countries about linguistics, about their job. But most of all, we

have speakers of different languages. We have found six speakers of six very different languages. They

will give examples of how they speak of words and sentences in their language. And it will be up to you

to analyze those examples. If you're in an advanced track or you just like that kind of thing, we also

invite you to submit your own language, to make videos in which you give those same words and

sentences in your own language. And then, other students can analyze those.

We also invite you to participate. We have an online forum on our course page. And if you like that kind

of thing, we also have a Facebook group in which you can discuss these things. But in any case, we hope

to see you very soon in the first module of our course on the miracles of human language.